One evening this past week, during dinner time, our son was trying to “make a point” non-stop.
First, we asked him to wash his hands, and right away he asked why he was the only one who needed to wash his hands while we only “rinsed”.
Then he insisted that he wasn’t allowed to eat food from the floor once it fell down, but I would sometimes pick it up and eat it.
Then as he was about to finish dinner, my husband chose the piece of watermelon that he’d “claimed” from the night before.
And he exploded, he demanded for us to cut up the new watermelon, he cried, screamed, kept saying that that was the piece he wanted..
There were so many moments, I wanted to raise my voice,
“Stop this nonsense now!”
“It’s only a piece of watermelon! We can give you two to make up for it.”
I also thought..
“Ok let’s cut up the other half so he’ll stop the crying.”
But we did none of that.
We just sat with him, even when he rejected us.
We tried to explain calmly to him that what he’s experiencing is called disappointment.
My husband tried to offer him the rest of the watermelon.
Eventually he calmed down enough, and I was able to explain a few things to him. And he was once again willing to share the watermelon with everyone.
Often times, when other people get upset with us, we may have a tendency to change how we do things to appease the other.
Other times, when the other person kept yelling at us, we may end up raising our voices to force the other person to “submit” to us.
Have you ever been in a situation where maybe your kid is acting “out of line”, and you had either thrown your hands up and let them do what they want, or raised your voice until you see them change?
Yea… dealing with kids is not easy.
And yet, this is what I learned from speaking up for myself…
It means ruffling other people’s feathers. Other people will get mad at me, or turn against me.
Which means, allowing our son to stand up for himself will ruffle our feathers.
And even though it makes me upset and want to dominate him, or make me want to throw in the towel, I know he is in the process of learning the skill of speaking up.
This is how he can grow up to be his own person, by allowing him to speak his mind.
Because in the real world, he will encounter many No’s. He will come across people who will be upset at him, guilt him into doing what they want.
But those things shouldn’t stop him from exercising his voice, standing for himself.
I am willing to do this again and again, even if it irritates the heck out of me.
And I know it can trigger us as parents, because unless we had very loving and compassionate parents, we were never allowed to speak our minds. Because speaking our minds came with many harmful consequences.
So one of the ways to allow our kids to speak up, is for us to speak up first. The way to give our kids love and compassion, is to give us love and compassion first.
Because we’ll never be able to give our kids what they need, if we don’t give that to ourselves first.
If you feel this is an area you would like to work on, book a free 20-min consult with me, and we can see if we are a good fit to work with each other.
Let’s stand for you, so you can stand for your kids.
Today, I'd like to present my sizzle reel. 🎬🎥
These are some of the proud speaking moments I had from the last two years.
You may see this clip and say, wow! Look at Claudia! I cannot do that!
This clip is meant to ask, how can you be more like you?
You see, all these video clips only showed one side of things.
As that girl who believed that she couldn’t articulate well, (somedays, that belief still plays loudly in my head), this is what I learned, and I’m still learning.
It is my willingness to face the ugly stuff.
😣To face the fear of others not liking me.
😣To accept the current disappointment, that I am currently not where I want to be yet.
😣 To step into the pain in my past, and sit with them for as long as needed, and watch them transform into strength.
And not only that, the willingness to question, what if it is possible?
🤨 let go of the belief, “I don’t have what it takes” to “Hmmm.. what if it is possible?”, even for just one second.
🙂 To say the next smallest “Yes” to myself, even when a part of me is screaming, “what the F are you doing?!”.
🥳 To keep accepting other people’s continuous reminders: “Be proud of myself.”
Failing, doesn’t matter. Where you are, doesn’t matter. They don’t define you. It is what you do next that matters most.
So Yes, I believe that we are all born a unicorn, in a cow society, where we are made to believe we are cows. And our mission in our lifetime, is to take this cow skin off as much as we can, so that we can see our true unicorn self. 🦄✨ so that You can be more YOU.
Monday was Canada Day, so my son wanted to play on the iPad, I decided I want to practice some Mortal Kombat moves on the Switch.
I was familiarizing myself with the basic moves and specific character’s moves, then my son got interested in it too.
We shared the control between the two of us, until I went to the washroom. He went ahead and chose his own character.
When I came back, I told him I was in the middle of playing!
He went off crying. I was thinking, why the heck are you crying? Arrg.. 😣😣
So I said, “Ok fine, you can choose a character to play. But you can only play for 15 min.”
He started practicing the moves. I had this pressure building up in my chest… I thought, “now what the F am I going to do?”
I saw some clothes, so I ended up folding them.
Then my husband asked me if I was ok, that was when the tears started falling down my face.
At the 15 min mark. I told my son to turn off the game. He had the nerve to say, “You didn’t say please!”
That blow my lid off, so I said harshly, “I didn’t say please because I’m upset at you. I was supposed to be playing but you cried when I tried to take back the game. So please turn off the game now!”
I got emotional midway through the sentence and I started crying, which made him burst into tears and cried too.
Luckily my husband was there to help him with his emotions.
After reflecting on it, I realized how my people-pleasing tendency showed up.
When he first cried, I should have held my ground to say “No, I’m playing.” And help teach him about waiting for his turn.
But rather, I gave up on the game because I didn’t want him to cry. I let him play, and then resented the fact that “he’s now playing the game”, I’m mad that it’s not fair.
In reality, I was actually mad at myself for not standing up for me, and then blaming him for the unfairness.
And that is how people-pleasing tendency looks like for me. Giving up on my own happiness to make other people happy, while I’m mad at myself for not standing up for me.
Yeah.. it wasn’t fair, for the both of us.
I also realized how much pent up emotions I had bottled up since childhood.
Since I was the oldest, I was always reminded of the need to share, let things go, be the bigger person. While it hadn’t been fair for me.
Now, here’s the kicker. After my husband talked to him, he said, “Tell Mommy that life is not fair!”
No 💩 Sherlock. 🤦🏻♀️🤣
Yeah, life is not fair, and I get to stand for me, even when other people get upset, even when they cry and yell, even when they try to threaten me.
And thanks to Mortal Kombat, I’m learning to fight for me.
Often times, we have a tendency to get mad at other people because we somehow believe that they “forced” us to give up something we want.
But maybe it’s our people-pleasing tendency coming up, it was the need to make sure other people are happy, at the expense of our own happiness.
Or maybe, we believe that we have no other choice but to do that thing we don’t want.
But maybe it’s because we don’t want to face the consequences of other people getting mad and upset at us.
When was the last time that something had happened to you, that you felt it was unfair, and you were mad at the other person, but reflecting deeper, it was because you were mad at yourself for not standing up for you?
Today I share something that may be a bit controversial.
Because there is a lot of suffering in the world. And we can’t change it fully, but we have the potential to change it bit by bit within us.
Recently there is a post on Reddit, the Original Poster said that she felt very uncomfortable wearing a bra since she was young, but family and school had been very harsh against her, manipulating and forcing her to keep wearing one. Now that she’s older, she doesn’t want to wear one, but whenever she does that, people are leering at her, talking about her, laughing at her, mocking her, and she doesn’t know what she can do to stop fighting it.
I understand that it can be very upsetting, annoying, frustrating, aggravating, especially feeling oppressed by how she’s being treated for it. Because the truth is, she should be able to do what she wants to.
In the ideal world. People should respect that she doesn’t want to wear a bra. It is not right to hurt her for living how she wants.
And yet, because society has already dictated that women “should” be wearing a bra, and when they refuse to wear one, they get shamed for it, mocked for it, leered at.
This is the current reality.
So if this is me, how would I go about living that?
First, I’ll have to acknowledge two things.
I’ll have to acknowledge the current reality.
There will be creepy men leering at me if I don’t want to wear a bra.
There will be people talking about me for not wearing a bra.
There will be people trying to hurt me if I don’t want to wear a bra.
This is the reality. Not saying that it is the right thing to do to me, of course I don’t want that, yet to give myself that power, I will have to acknowledge that this is what people will do.
The second thing I have to acknowledge are the feelings I have toward it.
I’ll feel mad that other people are trying to stop me.
I’ll be scared when guys try to come up to hurt me.
I’ll be agitated when they say mean things about me.
I’ll feel oppressed, helpless, hopeless for “needing” to follow society’s rules.
Once I processed these two things, then I can decide what to do.
“If this is the reality, what do I want for myself?”
Here’re some examples.
Today,
I will take some self defence classes so I can protect me.
I want to stand up for myself, and I want to give the finger to whoever acts out of line.
I want to walk up to the people who talk shit about me, and I challenge them in the face for being rude to me.
I want to look for people who support this agenda, who are doing the same thing, so I can walk proudly down the street without my bra.
I want to not care about what other people say, even when they gawk at me.
I want to feel the freedom in doing what I want, despite other people saying bad things about me.
I want to find joy in going out without a bra, and no matter what other people do, I am being who I am.
I want to inspire other women who also feel the same way, and are seeking the same freedom.
I am willing and ready to fight for me, no matter what.
I’m too tired today, so I’m going to put on another layer of clothes so no one looks at me.
Here’s the thing, going against “the norm” is an uphill battle.
By acknowledging the situation and our feelings, we may be able to see that we have more power over ourselves, because WE can then decide what we want for us, even when other people may be against us.
Acknowledging something doesn’t make it right, this is just the first step to own our own power.
Because at the end of the day, we get to decide what we want to do, because no one else gets to change us.
What is something that you feel pressured to do, and yet you feel there is “no other options” but to follow?
Last Thurs, my husband and I came upon an event where I reacted "out of character" for me. And he got really mad, because in his mind, he saw me as being disrespectful/hateful toward him and his family.
I reacted that way because I was trying to protect our son.
So on Monday night, my husband was trying to clear this up with me again, at first, he asked me a simple question, which I answered. But after some discussion, I realized how hurtful that question actually was for me, because I felt as if he didn’t understand who I am.
And this is what I realized.
Even the one who is closest to me and love me, can misunderstand me.
They can still perceive my action to be hurtful because they’re looking at things through their own filtered glasses.
Even when I have no intention of hurting anyone.
Yet here’s the difference,
If they really care and want to understand me, they will try to talk and clarify with me.
If they don’t, then they will try to change me, tell me how I’ve done wrong, how I should or shouldn’t be doing something.
In their eyes, I will always be at fault.
And as someone who has people-pleasing tendencies, I care.
I care a lot about how others feel and think.
And I also have to constantly remind myself that my own feelings and thoughts matter, and they’re valid.
We’re all human, we all have our own truths, and other people’s truth cannot overpower our own.
Because changing my perspectives or stopping myself from sharing my thoughts is going to make me frustrated, resentful, disappointed, and eventually I die inside.
If the closest person to me can misunderstand me, (which nothing has gone wrong), others will too.
And it’s ok.
So when I looked at that part of me who wants to speak up, this is what I see her do.
Be able to drive the car and drift like Ryan Gosling’s character in Fall Guy.
I love this scene where Colt Seaver (Gosling’s character) decided to “take his life back”. He’s had it with being a valet parking attendant, so he decided to bring back the client's car by drifting through the parking lot.
Me taking the wheels! 🚘🚗 OH yeah!
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When your loved ones misunderstand you, or when they try to change you, it can be very painful. (I cried non-stop for a good 20+ min. And I have to tell my husband not to feel guilty about asking me the question). All of these take courage, compassion, understanding.
So, if you are ready to speak up for yourself, and if you feel apprehensive in doing so (because it can be quite triggering on your own), reach out to me.
We can navigate through the messy emotions, and give you the power to stand for you, speak your mind.
Because your thoughts and feelings are just as valid as others. Because YOU matter.
Book a free 20min consult with me to see how we can approach this together.
So my coach is asking us to write things that is true to us. And this is something that is true to me, which is this...
Life is friggin' exhausting...
I was just thinking about my life.
Since the day I was born, I felt like I was thrown into this current.
Needing to perform at school, get good grades, pass exams, get into a good university, study the necessary courses to graduate.
So that I can get a job. Keep working, make money, get to the next step.
Go back to school, get a Masters.
Then find a person, get married, have kids, make sure they’re ok. Make sure we are on top of things.
Why?
While growing up, my mom kept telling me and my brother that life sucks.
And I resented her, for a very long time because I kept thinking, then why the heck did you bring me into this life?
So I didn’t want to have kids.. because life sucks (and that was how I felt).
And I desperately wanted to get out of it.
So I built up other parts of my life, like building my business.
Because in the back of my mind, I wanted to get out of this 💩 hole.
And my coach just bombed me, because she said, stop asking for your business (or whatever you do) to heal your wounds.
While sitting through this, I realized I carry a lot of my money insecurity wound, my insignificant wound, my not smart enough wound, and many more...
I have to heal all of these friggin bull💩 on my own.
And not rely on my business to heal me.
So I ask myself what do I really need for these healing to take place?
And the deeper answer is, I need rest, I need fun.
I need to care about what I really need first.
And yet I am too exhausted, so my answer is, I don’t know. Yet.
So I’ll just float down the river for a little bit and let it carry me wherever it goes.
And see what happens next... nothing has gone wrong.
If you’re feeling the same way, I want to let you know that you’re not alone.
Yesterday I met up with my amazing friend, Annie.
I shared how I would like to put my business on hold.
I want to discover what is fun for me, and rest.
And she said, good for you for giving yourself the permission!
My throat tightened and tears welled up my eyes.
Giving myself the permission to slow down and do what’s different from the norm.
Often times, we have a tendency to keep pushing ourselves, and when we don’t see results, we may double down on it, because somehow, we’d been trained to push through since we were young.
And what’s more, society often celebrates wins and milestones, while dismissing those who are slowing down.
Have you ever feel the need to rest, but somehow your brain says, maybe just one more thing?
If that’s you, you’re not alone.
I have to fight through my own mental chatter.
And sometimes, resting doesn’t feel good.
But I am willing to do this hard thing, to give more to myself, to be more of my fun, loving self. So that eventually I can give more to others.
If you’re called to rest, I invite you to put down what you can to tend to yourself too.
And no, it doesn’t mean you will not hear from me, you will just hear about things that are in my mind.
And I’d love to hear from you too! If you’re called to write back or connect, you can find me here, or on my social platforms!
